HSBC has attracted over 4,000 fans to its
Facebook student bursary competition, which gives students a chance
to win £15,000 ($23,000).
The competition launched two weeks ago, asks
UK students who are in their first year of university to upload 90
second videos to the social networking site and answer the
question: “How would £15,000 help you make your mark on the
world?”
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Matt Nguyen, youth and student segment manager
at HSBC, said: “By using facebook, we hope to reach as many
students as possible and give them the opportunity to win a bursary
which could transform their university experience.”
HSBC is offering bursaries for eight students,
twice the number of bursaries from the previous two years the
competition has run.
Facebook has become a vital marketing tool for
retail banks.
Chase, the retail unit of JPMorgan Chase, has
been one of the financial services sector’s most successful
advocates of social media; its Facebook ‘fan’ page currently has
over 40,000 members and acts as a portal to the bank’s standalone
Chase +1 student credit card programme.
New Zealand’s ASB Bank is trialling
a “virtual
branch” on Facebook where people can “talk” to staff about
their finances.
The virtual branch will be able to
carry out the same service as ASB’s call centre. But Anna
Curzon, ASB general manager for internet banking expects the bank’s
regular internet banking service to be used for most online
transactions.
The bank’s Twitter account, opened last year,
now has about 1,300 followers.
